Saturday, December 09, 2006

Customer journey, BPM and cross-channel service

Hm, one of those nice moments occured, while talking first to a chief architect of a major bank, and later to one of my close friends, who is a evangalist on new media (modern marketing with modern methods). 1 + 1 = 3, you know the feeling.The chief architect was explaining me how they were developing a method to create technology to support processes (front office/customer servicing) that cross channels. Meaning: I am a bank-client, I start with channel A (say, the Web), take 2 steps, and then call a call-centre. They do NOT start a new process, but are able to pickup the process where I left it, and take it further, to fullfillment, of possibly handing it back to me (on another channel, say web, paper, phone, visit, whatever). So, I would call this the cross-channel CRM process.Now my marketing evangelist, who linked this to a new concept. He called it the "customer journey". Hm, a concept that rings. Remember your own life - "He, I want.... I am interested in... where/how/when can I....". The search along companies, through web, phone, adds, to find that company that you trust enough to fill that need.... It's called the customer journey. Your journey.But that brings together 4 concepts:1 - your service offerings (what needs do you want to fill?)2 - the customer interest taxanomy and channel choices3 - the custumer journey4 - your, CRM cross channel process (BPM)So, do you (as a front office marketing/CRM/BPM analyst) see these concepts in your organisation? Acting on it?